A paradigm shift occurs when there is a profound change in the underlying assumptions about the world. For instance, a paradigm shift occurred in human thought after Galileo argued that the Earth and the planets revolved around the Sun, rather than the Sun and the planets revolving around the Earth. That paradigm shift completely changed the way we view and predict astronomical events – not to mention how it made possible the math needed for interplanetary travel. More recently, from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s, another paradigm shift occurred because of men like Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, who demonstrated that specific germs spread specific diseases rather than some kind of vague and undefined miasma. That paradigm shift completely changed the way we do medicine. When these sorts of shifts occur, whole populations of people dramatically change the way they think, behave, and view the world.
Acts 13 is the beginning of a paradigm shift for the Christian church. Most of the gospels, and almost all of the first part of Acts revolve around Jewish audiences. But in Acts 13, God takes the Jewish Saul and the Jewish Barnabas and sends them into the Gentile world. After Acts 13, Jewish Saul assumes the Roman name, Paul, and takes the Gospel to the non-Jewish world. It's unclear whether or not Saul already had the name Paul for when he was doing business in the Hellenized world, but what is clear is that Paul became his most well-known name sometime after he began his first missionary journey in Acts 13. Paul became the apostle to the Gentiles and then penned the overwhelming majority of the New Testament.
This paradigm shift meant that no longer would the God of Israel be viewed as the God of a single racial bloodline that was confined to the sociopolitical boundaries of a single nation, but instead would be rightfully viewed as the God who had children in all of the nations and races of the world. In some sense, Saul/Paul became the embodiment of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).
It’s no accident that Paul and his companions begin their missions from Antioch (Acts 13:1). The city was one of the world's most important centers during the Hellenistic period, and during Paul’s day, it served as a major trade hub between the Mediterranean sea and the interior of the Roman world. This strategic location gave early Christian missionaries the arteries they needed to reach all of the nations. Paul’s journeys from that spot changed the way the entire world thought, behaved, and generally operated.
You are the same kind of change agent as Paul. When you bring the gospel to a person who doesn’t know Jesus, you become the agent through which the Holy Spirit shifts that person’s entire world view. All of their fundamental assumptions about the world change the moment they are touched by God. Are you ready for the mission field, because you're on one, and you live in a hub much bigger than Antioch?
Comments